Strength
by istie
Summary: Kaidan goes hunting in Shepard's classified personnel files to find out just what she was up to while working for Cerberus. Unfortunately, curiosity gets the better of him, and he discovers something Shepard would have preferred no one know. Early ME3, Earthborn/Sole Survivor Shep. Rated T for language and non-graphic substance abuse. One-shot.


**Strength**

The pinch still made her hiss after all these years, but the wave of euphoria that made her legs give out made it more than worth it.

Shepard lay on the floor, staring up at her skylight, for what felt like an eternity, the bits of paraphernalia discarded on the floor. The colours sliding over the reinforced transparent armour made her head spin even more, and that one red line swirled around until it looked like a cloud on …

Akuze …

Oh God.

* * *

Kaidan scrolled through the list of personnel on his terminal, his eyes slipping over most of the names. M … N … sigh, so many R's … S, finally. Sa … Se … how did the Alliance have so many damn files … Sh.

She… Shep… Shepard—Hannah Shepard, Mark Shepard—

There she was. 5923-AC-2826.

He opened the file. Udina had charged him with finding out just what the hell Shepard had been doing with Cerberus, and Anderson had quietly passed him a semi-under-the-table sort-of-classified incredibly-deniable memo amounting to the same thing, so… well, here he was. Reading through his old commander's classified personnel records.

2186 … 2185 …

Cerberus involvement.

His eyes scanned quickly, noting salient points.

_Body sought by both Shadow Broker and Cerberus. Unconfirmed bounty on corpse by Collectors – unconfirmed mostly because they were a bit of an urban legend. Liara T'Soni acting as double-agent. Triple-agent. … on her own. Unnamed drell involved. Possibility of Officer Garrus Vakarian also being involved. _

Bloody hell this was confusing. Who the hell were these recon operatives and why were they so shit at unraveling just what the hell happened?

The answer came a second later: because no one really wants to believe half the things Shepard's involved with, and no one wants to admit the influence she wields … even dead.

He kept reading.

_Body recovered and given by Dr. T'Soni to Cerberus. Alliance infiltration unit in Lazarus Project caught after one year, brain wiped in 'industrial accident', found on colony halfway across Council space. Data before discovery details incredible 'resurrection' process, ridiculously avant-garde tissue cloning and regeneration tech. Infiltration unit questions likelihood of Shepard being the real deal, given there's very little to work with and no one's successfully been brought back from the dead before. Infiltrator assures in report that Shepard is very much dead._

Kaidan shivered. He wasn't sure what would be worse: a cloned Shepard, or a zombie Shepard. He wasn't going to be able to look her in the eye, now.

He continued scrolling.

_Year of surveillance data recovered shows bits and pieces of process. Note of Alliance funding being secretly funneled to the project via a Cerberus front company. Interesting. Transcript of recording between two unnamed and encrypted individuals, one sporting a Cerberus-op code, the other Alliance, debating the possibility of a control chip in the reborn Shepard. Both agree this would not be a good option based on the results of the project so far._

_Her re-emergence: visiting the Citadel quietly, being reintstated as a Spectre, disappearing into the Terminus Systems. Gathering experts, destroying various mercenary operations, picking off high-profile criminals. Very, very little work for Cerberus purposes: apart from a few merc bases getting the bump because they were in Cerberus' way and generally being assholes, a few resource drops … They go through the Omega-4 relay and return. _

She really hadn't been part of the organization. They'd almost been cut free – doing the Illusive Man's bidding in name only, doing him favours when they were in the region and it was convenient.

Very Shepard.

_Record of Admiral Steven Hackett requesting extraction for Dr. Amanda Kenson._

_Black period of nearly three days. Infrequent tight-beam Normandy transmissions between XO and Hackett reveal worry that Shepard has been silent. Hackett admits in personal journal that he is convinced the Reapers are coming._

_The relay explodes as an asteroid rams into it; Shepard only just escapes; no other survivors except those on the Normandy._

_Shepard is put under house arrest._

_The Reapers return._

_Current date._

Kaidan sighed and palmed the display control, dimming it. He put his head in his hands, inhaled slowly, and exhaled in a puff.

Not much to tell Udina and Anderson. "Shepard was right"? "The bullshit Shepard's been spouting since she reappeared has been, as much as our intelligence can tell, true"?

He sat there for what must have been fifteen minutes, mulling over what his report was going to say.

He looked up and brought the screen back to full brightness, scrolling back through the relevant years, checking to see if he'd missed anything.

He scrolled just a bit too far, and before he could move back up again, he caught sight of his name.

Virmire.

His heart clenched, but his mind sharpened with curiosity. Surely there was no harm in reading through their old mission files. Plus he was a Spectre … no one would ever know.

He kept reading, back through Noveria and Feros, back through Eden Prime – Nihlus' early recommendations (_she is very aggressive, possibly because of service history, but has a good head on her shoulders – if she keeps her head, she can talk her way out of anything, but on the other hand, no one could be left standing; possibly an excellent agent, needs a calming influence – suggest a very stable turian partner or asari commando in matron stage_). Anderson's nomination for Spectre training. Her grades in ICT training: a notable difference in her evaluations for N6 and N7, both post-Akuze, and N1 through N5, all pre-Akuze.

Full timeline of important Alliance-related events.

Reinstated into Alliance, 2186.  
Stripped of rank after Alpha Relay Incident, 2186.  
Active with Cerberus group, 2185.  
Presumed death by spacing in loss of Normandy SR-1, 2183.  
Battle of the Citadel, 2183.  
Recommended for Spectre training, 2182.  
N7, 2179.  
N6, 2178.  
Akuze, 2177.  
N5, 2177.  
N4, 2176.  
N3, 2175.  
N2, 2174.  
N1, 2173.  
Enlisted 2172.  
Involved in Tenth Street Reds, 2166-2171. See Appendix A.  
First Contact War, 2157, father Mark Shepard dies; Shepard placed in Alliance-sponsored orphanage.  
Born 2154, mother Hannah Shepard dies due to childbirth complications.

A war child. A space child. A galaxy child.

Final section: psych profiles, from 2172 on, one per year.

_2177: "Patient shows all symptoms of severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Recommend six months' leave and full psychiatric detail. Patient unfit for active duty at this time. Recommend relaxants and anti-anxiety meds to help patient deal with flashbacks."_

_2178: "Patient's post-traumatic stress disorder continues to obstruct normal life; in active duty, however, patient shows no signs of symptoms. Patient is able to compartmentalize remarkably well. Suggest this is not healthy path. Strongly recommend patient actually take leave to deal with stress and anxiety disorders. Patient must realize that active duty will not last forever, and coping mechanisms for civilian life need to be developed before mental afflictions become untenable. Recommend stronger meds. Or recommend that patient start taking meds in the first place."_

_2179: "Patient shows signs of addiction to work, possible masochism. Patient is fully capable and incredibly talented on battlefield; personal relationships are at an all-time low of nonexistence. Patient is insular and almost misanthropic. Patient is showing signs of suicidal tendencies. Strongly recommend patient be removed from active duty and sent to psychiatric rehab centre. Concerned that patient will seek reckless battlefield situations, if not go completely kamikaze. For the love of God, please make her take the anxiety meds before she comes to see me."_

_2180: "Patient is remarkably calm and stable. Strange behaviour from self-admitted addict. Honestly impressed that patient held out for nearly two years before turning to self-medication. Disappointed that patient's distrust of authority meant that patient turned to pulvis rubicundus rather than prescribed medication. Hypothesis: stories of mother's death due to medical complications? Will investigate further. Recommend patient be sent to drug rehabilitation."_

A tiny memo: a short, terse misdemeanour write-up from Shepard's old CO for "possession and use of illegal materials."

A Council-ordered psych profile upon recommendation for Spectre training: _"Candidate has history of substance use. Regardless, performance on battlefield is extraordinary; minor substance use does not seem to affect. Keeps general's shakes at bay when not on battlefield. Candidate remarkably good at compartmentalization; doubt use of red sand will be an issue. Would keep an eye on it, though: once she gets into the liquefied stuff, we could have a problem."_

Kaidan closed the window and pushed back, feeling like his legs had turned to jelly. He sat there, stunned, running through all his interactions with Shepard, wondering if she'd ever stopped, wondering if he'd missed the clues, realizing it was nearly invisible.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, logged out of the terminal, stood up, and left.

* * *

Shepard was eating a larger lunch than usual in the Normandy mess hall when Kaidan walked in. He nodded to her as he went by, got his own lunch from the fridge, and—

Hesitated slightly before pulling out the chair opposite her.

Had she imagined it?

She looked up; her vision was still oh-so-slightly tinted red, and it was taking a fair amount of willpower to keep her biotics under control as the last of the high filtered out. He looked perfectly calm, as Kaidan usually did, but when he met her eyes, she saw a flash of _something_.

She tilted her head.

"Something wrong, Alenko?"

A pause that was slightly too long for her liking.

"No, Shepard."

He started eating. She returned to her plate after a moment of staring at him blankly.

He stopped. Put his fork down. Looked up. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"Shepard, I … are you okay? Do you … do you need anything?"

She looked up at him again, and raised an eyebrow.

"No, Major, I—"

The way he looked at her finally registered. It was_ pity_.

He _knew_.

How the fuck did he _know_?

She stood up, her stomach churning, every flight instinct she'd ever cultivated kicking in.

"Actually, come to think of it, I have a report that needs reading. Sorry, Major. I … should go."

She turned and left, the tray abandoned. Her left index finger flickered blue momentarily. She knew Kaidan would have caught it. She kicked herself mentally.

Somehow she made it to her room, and collapsed on her bed.

_How?_

She lay there for several moments, then let her head roll to the side.

The other vial lay on her bedside table – the other half of the shipment she'd received, the first she'd had since before she got arrested … six months was a long time … stress was at an all-time high … the regular sand hadn't cut it after they'd hit the Citadel after Mars, so she'd had to grease Aria's palm just enough to get two vials of the good stuff …

She'd been saving it for after Menae …

She reached across the bed, the lines of colour in her skylight already seeming to swirl and shift.


End file.
